About 5 years ago I began to load with Tightgroup powder. It soon became my "go to" powder for almost all of my pistol reloading except for lighter loads in my .45 auto (for Service and Wild Bunch shooting), 38 S&W and .32 auto.
About 3 years ago I was in a competition with my Springfield Armoury 1911 A 1 .45. My ammunition was a 200 gn plated flat point bullet over 5.1 gn Tightgroup (max listed land on Hodgdon's website for the .45/200 gn is 5.2 gn's). This had previously chronographed at major power factor for me but at the chronograph that weekend I failed to make major and ended up shooting .45 minor for the weekend.
After this I spent a few weeks experimenting with my loading. I gradually worked up in .1 gn increments to a load that made major PF with enough reserve. This was around .5 gn above the max published load.
Over time I received some comments about the loudness of my pistol discharges and someone once said they saw a muzzle flash out of the barrel, but overall the recoil did not feel excessive, the primers showed no signs of excess pressure and my pistol shot accurately with these loads.
Some time ago I was experimenting with 200 gn cast lead SWC projectiles. I did not have a sizing die and some of the projectiles were dropping oversize, uptown .458". While loading up a test batch (using the same load of Tightgroup as for the PFP bullets) a couple of the cast projectiles got stuck in either the sizing or crimping die, and I ended up having to pull the dies down to push them out.
I believed I had been pretty careful to ensure no double charges occurred, but while test firing these one round detonated. I ended up with small fragments of brass in my cheek and my pistol was stuck with the slide closed. When I got it open I found a Winchester case (I generally use Starline so it might have been a range pick up) had blown at the web. The gun was not damaged and I put the incident down to a possible powder overcharge due to the sizing/crimping die issues or possibly brass weekend by previous firings. I pulled the rest of the test ammo apart and decided to stick with my plated bullets even for practice.
Back in June and July I was preparing for both the North Island IPSC Champs at the end of September and our IPSC Nationals in November. Between these two events I was traveling in the US. I loaded up the North Island ammunition using my many times fired Starline (and range pick up) brass. For the Nationals I decided to buy 500 new cases to load. Then only ones available to me were Winchester cases which I sourced from two gun shops, one local and one in Auckland. All of the ammunition for both competitions was barrel dropped as part of the loading process.
At the North Islands my gun and ammunition performed as usual. Not quite flawlessly but pretty close (two failures to extract and one failure to ignite the primer)
Day one of the Nationals and I was shooting the loads in Winchester cases mixed in with about 200 rounds left over from the North Island competition. On the third stage I made the first magazine change and fired the next shot. There was an obvious case failure. The slide locked open and I again got some primer/brass fragments in my cheek. (The R/O called "stop" so I got the reshoot after having the pistol checked over).
The case had failed at the web and the next one in the magazine had detonated. Fortunately the detonated case had just blown apart and the primer pushed out. The slide on my pistol was not stuck, but the footplate in my brand new Wilson Combat mag was blown and the spring twisted out of shape
. Two gunsmiths on the range examined my pistol. The slide rail was buckled slightly and there was a small crack inside the slide, but the pistol was usable.
The blown cases were both Winchester. Consensus was that the primers were showing no signs of overpressure and that the web on the Winchester cases was thinner than on the Starline ones. One very experienced shooter went so far as to say that this is a known issue with Winchester cases which can regularly blow.
Over the rest of the day I had a few more cases where the web failed and two with cracked cases running from the mouth towards the base of the case. I changed to my spare pistol, a Chinese made Norinco Ranger built like a tank as I didn't want any more damage to my Springfield.
Early on day two I had another total case failure. This time the head of the case blew out leaving the rest of the case in the chamber the R/O did not call "stop so no reshoot). The case remains came out easily once I got the pistol disassembled using a pair of needle nose pliers to pull it out gently. Again the second round had detonated destroying a magazine floor plate . One of the revolver shooters on the squad behind us and just been DQ'd for dropping his gun and he volunteered to make the 20 minute drive each way to pick me up some factory ammunition (Winchester 230 gn JHP at 202 PF). Luckily I had been first shooter on the stage, was last shooter on the next and we had a lunch break in between stages so I had the time to wait for the ammo to arrive. I shot the rest of the match with this ammunition and my Springfield pistol.
The first thing I did when I got home was to check the powder drop on my .45 ACP press. After making 10 drops I weighed the next five. Four were right on the powder weight I have been shooting for over 3 years, the fifth was .1 gn low.
I took two blown cases plus a dozen once fired ones into my LGS. They have a program that showed my load at slightly over 16,500 PSI, warm but not in the overcharge category (17,000 PSI and above). They examined the once fired cases using a scope and saw cracks in all but one case.
I returned to my loading bench and loaded up some test loads, a max published load of Tightgroup together with two more, each . 2 gn higher but under my usual loading. I also loaded up some cases using the same bullets and W231 powder at 5.5 and 5.7 gn (max load for 200 gn jacketed bullet listed at 5.9 gn). Yesterday I got to the range early and set up my chronograph.
Both three and five rounds of the maximum published load of Tightgroup under the 200 gn PFP bullet gave a PF of 158.6, well under the 170 PF to make major.
An additional .2 gn resulted in a PF of 164.8 for 5 rounds, 166.3 for the first 3 rounds.
Another .2 gn gave me 171.2 PF for the first three shots but this dropped to 169.7 for five rounds due to one veery low velocity.
My up to now usual load, left over from the North Island competition and sorted out from the remaining Winchester cases, resulted in a 173.9 PF for both the first 3 and all 5 rounds.
Both of the 231 loads gave me PF's in the high 140's/low 150's for 3 and 5 rounds respectively.
The powder pressure program my LGS uses gave pressures at under 14,000 PSI for both 231 loads and under 15,000 PSI for a load more than .5 grain over the maximum published under the 200 gn jacketed bullet.
It seems a change of powder is in the future for my .45 ACP loads, along with a new Tanfoglio Witness 1911 A1 pistol which I have ordered as the cost of a new pistol compared to a new slide for my Springfield and having it machined for my sights is definitely cost effective. I will have the rail straightened on the Springfield slide but the gun will be confined to shooting Service and Classic Pistol Matches from now on where the PF is a lot lower (120 minimum).
Anyone have a good recipe for 230 gn LRN at 650 FPS???
About 3 years ago I was in a competition with my Springfield Armoury 1911 A 1 .45. My ammunition was a 200 gn plated flat point bullet over 5.1 gn Tightgroup (max listed land on Hodgdon's website for the .45/200 gn is 5.2 gn's). This had previously chronographed at major power factor for me but at the chronograph that weekend I failed to make major and ended up shooting .45 minor for the weekend.
After this I spent a few weeks experimenting with my loading. I gradually worked up in .1 gn increments to a load that made major PF with enough reserve. This was around .5 gn above the max published load.
Over time I received some comments about the loudness of my pistol discharges and someone once said they saw a muzzle flash out of the barrel, but overall the recoil did not feel excessive, the primers showed no signs of excess pressure and my pistol shot accurately with these loads.
Some time ago I was experimenting with 200 gn cast lead SWC projectiles. I did not have a sizing die and some of the projectiles were dropping oversize, uptown .458". While loading up a test batch (using the same load of Tightgroup as for the PFP bullets) a couple of the cast projectiles got stuck in either the sizing or crimping die, and I ended up having to pull the dies down to push them out.
I believed I had been pretty careful to ensure no double charges occurred, but while test firing these one round detonated. I ended up with small fragments of brass in my cheek and my pistol was stuck with the slide closed. When I got it open I found a Winchester case (I generally use Starline so it might have been a range pick up) had blown at the web. The gun was not damaged and I put the incident down to a possible powder overcharge due to the sizing/crimping die issues or possibly brass weekend by previous firings. I pulled the rest of the test ammo apart and decided to stick with my plated bullets even for practice.
Back in June and July I was preparing for both the North Island IPSC Champs at the end of September and our IPSC Nationals in November. Between these two events I was traveling in the US. I loaded up the North Island ammunition using my many times fired Starline (and range pick up) brass. For the Nationals I decided to buy 500 new cases to load. Then only ones available to me were Winchester cases which I sourced from two gun shops, one local and one in Auckland. All of the ammunition for both competitions was barrel dropped as part of the loading process.
At the North Islands my gun and ammunition performed as usual. Not quite flawlessly but pretty close (two failures to extract and one failure to ignite the primer)
Day one of the Nationals and I was shooting the loads in Winchester cases mixed in with about 200 rounds left over from the North Island competition. On the third stage I made the first magazine change and fired the next shot. There was an obvious case failure. The slide locked open and I again got some primer/brass fragments in my cheek. (The R/O called "stop" so I got the reshoot after having the pistol checked over).
The case had failed at the web and the next one in the magazine had detonated. Fortunately the detonated case had just blown apart and the primer pushed out. The slide on my pistol was not stuck, but the footplate in my brand new Wilson Combat mag was blown and the spring twisted out of shape
. Two gunsmiths on the range examined my pistol. The slide rail was buckled slightly and there was a small crack inside the slide, but the pistol was usable.The blown cases were both Winchester. Consensus was that the primers were showing no signs of overpressure and that the web on the Winchester cases was thinner than on the Starline ones. One very experienced shooter went so far as to say that this is a known issue with Winchester cases which can regularly blow.
Over the rest of the day I had a few more cases where the web failed and two with cracked cases running from the mouth towards the base of the case. I changed to my spare pistol, a Chinese made Norinco Ranger built like a tank as I didn't want any more damage to my Springfield.
Early on day two I had another total case failure. This time the head of the case blew out leaving the rest of the case in the chamber the R/O did not call "stop so no reshoot
). The case remains came out easily once I got the pistol disassembled using a pair of needle nose pliers to pull it out gently. Again the second round had detonated destroying a magazine floor plate . One of the revolver shooters on the squad behind us and just been DQ'd for dropping his gun and he volunteered to make the 20 minute drive each way to pick me up some factory ammunition (Winchester 230 gn JHP at 202 PF). Luckily I had been first shooter on the stage, was last shooter on the next and we had a lunch break in between stages so I had the time to wait for the ammo to arrive. I shot the rest of the match with this ammunition and my Springfield pistol.The first thing I did when I got home was to check the powder drop on my .45 ACP press. After making 10 drops I weighed the next five. Four were right on the powder weight I have been shooting for over 3 years, the fifth was .1 gn low.
I took two blown cases plus a dozen once fired ones into my LGS. They have a program that showed my load at slightly over 16,500 PSI, warm but not in the overcharge category (17,000 PSI and above). They examined the once fired cases using a scope and saw cracks in all but one case.
I returned to my loading bench and loaded up some test loads, a max published load of Tightgroup together with two more, each . 2 gn higher but under my usual loading. I also loaded up some cases using the same bullets and W231 powder at 5.5 and 5.7 gn (max load for 200 gn jacketed bullet listed at 5.9 gn). Yesterday I got to the range early and set up my chronograph.
Both three and five rounds of the maximum published load of Tightgroup under the 200 gn PFP bullet gave a PF of 158.6, well under the 170 PF to make major.
An additional .2 gn resulted in a PF of 164.8 for 5 rounds, 166.3 for the first 3 rounds.
Another .2 gn gave me 171.2 PF for the first three shots but this dropped to 169.7 for five rounds due to one veery low velocity.
My up to now usual load, left over from the North Island competition and sorted out from the remaining Winchester cases, resulted in a 173.9 PF for both the first 3 and all 5 rounds.
Both of the 231 loads gave me PF's in the high 140's/low 150's for 3 and 5 rounds respectively.
The powder pressure program my LGS uses gave pressures at under 14,000 PSI for both 231 loads and under 15,000 PSI for a load more than .5 grain over the maximum published under the 200 gn jacketed bullet.
It seems a change of powder is in the future for my .45 ACP loads, along with a new Tanfoglio Witness 1911 A1 pistol which I have ordered as the cost of a new pistol compared to a new slide for my Springfield and having it machined for my sights is definitely cost effective. I will have the rail straightened on the Springfield slide but the gun will be confined to shooting Service and Classic Pistol Matches from now on where the PF is a lot lower (120 minimum).
Anyone have a good recipe for 230 gn LRN at 650 FPS???
